This invention relates to sickles, and particularly to an improved construction for splicing the bar that mounts sickle cutter sections.
Sickles are widely used in mechanical apparatus for cutting and harvesting. Sickles typically contain an elongated bar to which is attached a plurality of triangular tooth sickle cutter sections arranged side by side along the length of the bar. The bar with the attached sickle sections is reciprocated relative to a guard structure and the material to be cut is caught between the reciprocating cutter sections and the guards. The sickles, and therefore the sickle bars, can be very lengthy. A thirty foot sickle bar is not uncommon.
The sickle sections will ocasionally break or become excessively worn. The sickle cutter sections are typically attached to the bar by some form of removable fasteners such as bolts, so that it is relatively simple to replace one or more sickle sections. However, when a bar breaks, or an entire length of assembled bar and sickle sections must be replaced, it is necessary to transport a very long flat bar. The cost of shipping such a part is very expensive in terms of its intrinsic value.
The present invention provides a splice construction for joining shorter or broken sections of sickle bars.